Earth moving vehicles equipped with rubber tires often have to be serviced wherever tire failure occurs on a job site. Such vehicles, while extremely heavy, may be jacked off their wheels hydraulically for changing tires. Spare tires on wheel rims are generally kept at a central repair location and brought to the vehicle in the field where the tire failure may occur.
A typical large wheeled loader may be a vehicle of up to 130,000 pounds in weight and each tire-rim assembly may, depending upon the size involved, weigh from 4,000 to 8,000 pounds or more. Machinery is obviously involved in the handling of such tires, and in the past slings made of chains were often wrapped about the tire with the chains caught between large lugs on the tire in order to handle the same. Often the chains were in the way of workmen attempting to loosen and tighten lug nuts which attach the rim to the wheel of the vehicle, and close positioning of the tire and rim to the wheel of the vehicle was very difficult to achieve.
It is preferable to be able to lift a tire and rim assembly so that it hangs from the end of a crane in an upright position because this is the position in which the tire and rim assembly can be moved laterally onto or off of the studs on the wheel of the earth moving vehicle. Heretofore, the slings generally used for this purpose have not permitted easy maneuvering of the assembly into an upright position.